Contractions and Abbreviations

In medieval manuscripts, the spelling of nouns and verbs was often shortened to save transcription space and work. To avoid confusion and ensure proper identification, symbols such as "-," "~," "o" were added above or within some alphabetical letters in shortened words. Numerous methods were used for shortening the spelling of words including: (1) retaining the beginning of a word and omitting the rest (truncation); (2) omitting the middle of a word (contraction); (3) adding "-," "~" or "o" to indicate the omitted letters and their positions; (4) omitting the ending of a word and adding a symbol; and (5) replacing the entire word with a symbol. There is such a variety of methods that J.L. Walther, an 18th-century paleographer, compiled a dictionary of abbreviations. A. Chassant, A. Cappelli, A. Pelzer and other scholars have also gathered various examples of abbreviations and compiled dictionaries.

Printers of incunabula strove to reproduce medieval manuscripts as they were, and therefore, contractions and abbreviations were also printed as they were. For this reason, types of letters with symbols as well as types for non-alphabetical letters were created. The figure on the left-hand side shows the example types used for contractions and abbreviations from a set of the types used by C. Kachelofen, called "Typ. 3."

The following section shows some examples of contractions and abbreviations.

is an abbreviation of "Quia," and is an abbreviation of "Quare."

Usually the vowels with a line attached above such as , , , , and means that "m" or "n" is omitted after the vowel. For example, represents "amen" and "cum."

Also the following six consonants, , , , , , and with a line attached above indicate that some letters before and/or after the consonant are abbreviated. For example, represents "augusti," "beatum," "domini" and "tempus." Particularly, often represents "pr(a)e," "quae" and "re." For example, represents "prete," "quaedam" and "res."

is an abbreviation of "ergo," but there is also the use of to represent "grossos."

is an abbreviation of "quo," and represents "quod."

is an abbreviation of "dicit," but there is also the use of to represent "divinae."

is an abbreviation of "hic," but it is also used so that represents "habet" and "philosophiae."

is used as in to represent "talis," and used as in to represent "legitur."

is an abbreviation of "tre," and represents "tres." When is placed at the end of a word, it becomes an abbreviation of "-ter."

is an abbreviation of "ter," and represents "terre."

is an abbreviation of "ut."

is an abbreviation of "per" or "par." represents "pare" and "parumper."

is an abbreviation of "pro." represents "probat" and "probem."

is an abbreviation of "papa," but it is also used to represent "populo" as in .

is an abbreviation of "propter," but it is also used to represent "prope" as in and "propheta" as in .

is an abbreviation of "qui" or "quod." For example, represents "quoddam."

is an abbreviation of "quam," and represents "quamvis."

is an abbreviation of "que" and is used at the end of a word. For example, represents "quodcumque."

is an abbreviation of "quoque."

is an abbreviation of "et."

is added to the end of a word to indicate that "rum" is omitted.

is used as an abbreviation of "com" or "con" when it is placed at the beginning of a word, and as an abbreviation of "us" or "is" at the end of a word.

is used as an abbreviation of "us" or "um" when it is placed at the end of a word.

Shown above are some examples of contractions and abbreviations chosen from a set of the type fount used by C. Kachelofen named "Typ.3." There are other forms of contractions and abbreviations also used in incunabula. For more information, see A. Cappelli's Lexicon abbreviaturarum; dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiana (1929; 6th ed. 1990).